Clash of Flames: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 7 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department)

by John P. Logsdon

  Shit happens.

  But I honestly wasn’t worried about these idiots killing me. I was concerned Rachel may be hurt by them, but not me. Of course, if they knocked me out, I wouldn’t be able to help her in any way.

  I was going to need to make a move.

  “Okay, assholes,” I spat while faking the need to reach out for the door handle to keep myself steady, “which one of you wants to die first?”

  “Me,” groaned The Admiral.

  “Dude, shut the fuck up!”

  Red’s laughter slowed, but his face was still lit up.

  “Oooh,” he said, stringing on his crew, “we’re so scared.”

  I smiled at him.

  “I love overconfidence,” I remarked. “It makes it so damn easy to beat people at their own game.”

  Red obviously caught on to the fact that something was suddenly amiss because he stopped laughing completely. He then growled at his goons until they stopped laughing as well.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Just that you’re all idiots,” I replied, opening the door and slamming it behind me.

  It hadn’t given us much time, especially since the door locked from the inside, but it allowed me to grab Boomy from his holster while Rachel got her hands glowing.

  Boomy, my Desert Eagle .50 caliber gun, glistened under the overhead lights. I loved him like a son. It was because he was such a badass that I’d had to name him.

  Before you ask, yes, I sometimes talked to Boomy.

  And, no, he did not talk back.

  The door latch to the bathroom turned and three wolves fought to get out at the same time.

  “Me first, idiots,” yelled Red as he stepped out to meet his demise.

  Boomy was not forgiving.

  When a breaker bullet left my gun, it did so with vicious intentions. Breaker bullets were the projectile of choice for the Vegas PPD because they contained shards of wood and silver, and they also housed negation strands. When the bullet struck someone, these items launched throughout the body explosively. The wood would inevitably strike the heart of a vampire, killing them; the silver would fly through a werewolf and take them out; and the negation strands worked swell against magic users. You didn’t really need anything special to kill a pixie because the .50 caliber bullet would completely annihilate one of those little bastards.

  Some officers had started adopting a new type of projectile that was growing in popularity among Retrievers. Those were the cops from the Netherworld who came topside to bring back supers who had outstayed their welcome. They’d been using Death Nails, which were similar to breakers, but they looked more like, well, nails. One nice thing about those was that you could drive them into a person by hand. You didn’t have to fire them. But they were yet to be approved for use by non-Retrievers.

  Fortunately, Rachel held her magic in check, obviously noting that my breakers had done a fine job of eradicating Red and his two goons. I really didn’t want fireballs and ice storms flying through my condo.

  “What about the two you knocked out?” she asked. “Are they still alive?”

  I nodded at her.

  “Cuff them and put in a call to Lydia to have Portman send a crew out to pick everyone up,” I said as I rummaged through Red’s pockets. There was nothing. Not even a cell phone. Finally, in his hip pocket, I found a set of car keys. “We’ve got keys. The remote will help us find the car. Hopefully there’ll be something in there we can use.”

  “Good,” replied Rachel. “Lydia said Portman will have some folks on the way. I told her the door was open and that we’d probably be gone before they got here.”

  “Yep,” I agreed. Then I gave her a kiss. “We’ll have to finish what we started in the shower later, okay?”

  She gave me a disturbed look. “Well, it’s not like I’m interested in doing it now.”

  “Me either,” agreed The Admiral in a sullen voice.

  Chapter 4

  According to Red’s key fob, his car was a Mercedes of some sort, but I didn’t know what model. I pressed the ‘panic’ button, hoping to hear the horn blare on his car.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe his car is in the garage,” Rachel said, leading the way.

  We walked around, hitting the button, but nothing sounded. Finally we headed outside and crossed the street toward Tommy Rocker’s, thinking maybe the goons parked that way.

  Still nothing.

  “Maybe it’s dead,” I stated, looking at the fob.

  “Or he disabled it somehow,” suggested Rachel. “Either way, that’s not going to do us any good.”

  “Guess not, which really…” I paused as I glanced up and saw a beat-up white ’76 Impala. I flipped over the fob and spotted a white ‘i’ painted on it. Yes, it was even in lowercase. “Huh,” I sniffed, showing the fob to Rachel.

  “What kind of idiot carries around an electronic key fob for a Mercedes when they drive a junker like that?”

  I was thinking the same thing. Clearly it couldn’t be used to open the car door, unless he’d gotten someone from Mercedes to install an alarm for him. I highly doubted they’d comply with such a request.

  No, something else was going on.

  “Maybe it’s his wife’s?”

  Rachel gave me a look. “So he drives a piece of shit like this and she gets a Mercedes?”

  “Could be that he’s divorced.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” she admitted with a half nod while staring at the car. “Poor bastard.”

  “Yeah,” I scoffed, remembering his intention to kill us both. “Well, he’s in a better place now.”

  Rachel chuckled and followed me to the car.

  I didn’t believe it would actually be locked, but it was. What could he possibly have in this old wreck that anyone would want?

  After cracking open the doors, we started going through the car, piece by piece. There was nothing in the front or back, so we opened the trunk, fully expecting to see a body in there.

  We weren’t disappointed.

  There was most certainly a body in there, but it was alive, and it looked pretty pissed off.

  “Turbo?” I said, staring down at the little pixie who worked as the lead tech for the PPD. He was wearing his standard police officer’s uniform and everything. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Those fucking dildo fondlers locked me up in here!” he blurted. Then he growled to himself while making fists with both hands. “If I get my hands on those rump rangers, I’ll sign them up for the Butt Plug of the Month Club!”

  While it was absolutely normal for pixies to swear like sailors and to come up with creative names to call people, it was totally out of character for Turbo. He was more the nerd type of pixie than the cursing type. For him to be spewing out vulgarities meant he was incredibly fired up.

  “Did they get you at your house?” asked Rachel.

  “Of course they got me at my house, you slutty jizz target,” he spat back, but then he slapped a hand over his mouth as his eyes went wide. Finally, he took his hand away and said, “I’m sooo sorry I just said that.”

  Rachel was typically not the type who tolerated being spoken to in such a way. To be fair, she had requested that I call her names as of late while we were roleplaying, but that was an anomaly due to our new situation. With other people, though, she was known to leave a shoe in your ass if you treated her with anything less than respect.

  Fortunately for Turbo, she understood he was merely flustered and therefore let it go.

  “It’s all right,” she said, reaching out and patting him on his head gently. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

  Both Turbo and I sighed in relief.

  “Thanks,” he said, lucky to still be in one piece.

  “What I don’t understand,” I said while eyeing the pixie, “is why Red didn’t just kill you? Seems like that would have been his smartest move.”

  “Who’s Red?” asked Turbo as he scratched his hea
d in thought.

  “That’s the name I’m calling the werewolf who had red eyes.”

  “Ah, him.” Turbo shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t really hear them while I was stuck in the trunk. There was a lot of mumbles and growls, but nothing I could make out.” He then held up a finger. “They grabbed me just after I left my house to head into work. Shoved me in his pocket. Fucking clit thumber.” He scowled for a moment. “Anyway, I could hear him from inside that pocket, and he did mention something about collateral.”

  Maybe that meant Red had planned to use Turbo as a bargaining chip to get to me, should the need arise? Or maybe he needed to keep one of us alive so his employer couldn’t just up and kill him when the job was done? Honestly, I wasn’t sure what the logic was there, but I couldn’t think of any other reason to keep Turbo around.

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking down at the keys again. “I don’t suppose you have a clue why this guy was carrying around a Mercedes key fob, do you?”

  “No,” Turbo replied, waving at me to bring it closer to him. “Hmmm…the side is slightly opened.” He pulled out a tiny flashlight and looked inside. “There’s another key in there.”

  “For what?”

  “How should I know, you gargantuan nipple pimple?” he fumed, and then he softened again. “Dang it! I’m sorry.” He breathed out heavily. “I have to relax.”

  “It’s cool, man,” I said. “Why don’t you come out of there and get some fresh air?”

  He pointed at his ankle. There was a little chain attached to it.

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “I didn’t see that before.”

  “I would have just picked the lock,” he said, “but there isn’t one. The guy connected it and then magic sealed it in place.”

  Rachel leaned in and fired off a little spell that broke the device from Turbo’s leg, freeing him. He flew out and zipped around the area like a little bird who had just tasted flight for the first time.

  “Thanks, Rachel,” he said as he flew back and landed on my shoulder. “I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my days in the back of a crap car like that.”

  I turned to my partner.

  “Good thing we decided to look through the car,” I said via the connector, not wanting Turbo to think about how he might have actually died in there. “That would have been a nasty way to go.”

  “Quite,” she agreed.

  “Well,” I said aloud, “we should probably—”

  “Chief,” came the voice of Chuck, one of my other officers, “Griff and I need help pronto. We’re being attacked by something…uh…well!”

  “Werewolves?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he replied. “Definitely not werewolves.”

  “Right. Vampires, then?”

  “I am a vampire, Chief,” Chuck replied. “I think I might recognize those without much fuss.”

  “Sorry,” I said, taking a breath while realizing I was being an idiot. “We just got attacked by werewolves who were apparently hired to assassinate us.”

  “Hopefully they didn’t succeed,” Chuck remarked.

  “Funny. So what are you dealing with, then?”

  “Are you sitting down?” Griff asked before Chuck could reply.

  “No.”

  “Well, you might wish to do so,” Griff replied after a moment. “From what I’m seeing here, I believe we may be dealing with your…brothers.”

  I sat down.

  Chapter 5

  My brothers? How would that even be possible? Unless we were all split up when we were kids or something. But wouldn’t we have known about each other somehow? Perhaps I wasn't the only one who was given a trust fund from my parents after all. Having a few wealthy dudes who all had similar backgrounds would be too coincidental and would definitely warrant investigation.

  I explained the claim to Rachel and Turbo, and then patched them in on the call.

  “Sorry, guys,” I said as I rubbed my temples, “did you say you saw my brothers?”

  “They’re not dead ringers for you, Chief,” Chuck answered, “but they’re casting spells, their fangs are out, and they’ve got that werewolf eyes thing going.”

  “And they are also clothed in fine attire,” Griff added.

  So they were amalgamites.

  Well, damn.

  I thought I was the only one.

  “Do they look like me at all?”

  “Just in that they’re attractive and well-dressed,” Griff answered.

  “How many of them are there?” asked Rachel.

  “Two,” replied Chuck.

  “Chief,” Jasmine chimed in a moment later, “we’ve got a couple of amalgamites trying to break into my flat here.”

  “We’ve?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at Rachel.

  “Felicia, Serena, and Warren…uh…spent the night.”

  “Nice,” said The Admiral.

  I ignored him, though I had to agree. Well, subtracting Warren from the equation anyway. I knew that Felicia and Jasmine had played together before, and I was also well aware of Serena’s lust for carnal things, but I had no idea they all got busy orgy-style. My guess was that this had to do with them having met the valkyries during our last mission. Those Amazonian babes could start the engine on a rusted-out jalopy.

  There was no time to allow my mind to drift into that fantasy at the moment.

  I was more worried about the amalgamites stuff.

  On the one hand, it’d be great to finally have people in this damn world who understood the things I went through on a daily basis; on the other hand, if they were bad guys—which it seemed they were, that would mean I had a major fight looming in my future.

  A little voice in my head told me that something fishy was going on here.

  “We can’t beat these things off,” Chuck said.

  I fought not to giggle at that, but Rachel’s juvenile grin made that challenging. Ever since she’d turned to the submissive side, she’d become more in tune with my appreciation for naughty humor.

  “Griff’s been casting spells at them like it’s going out of style,” Chuck continued, “but they just heal each other and resume their attack.”

  “Same on this side,” said Felicia. “Jasmine’s been hitting both of them repeatedly with fireballs. They just keep coming and coming.”

  “Definitely sounds like they could be your brothers,” noted Rachel aloud, her smile in full force.

  Honestly.

  “Okay, guys,” I said, “get out of there and meet me down at the station.”

  “There’s no getting out, Chief,” Warren stated as Rachel, Turbo, and I took off back toward The Martin so we could get to my car. “They’ve got runes all around the house. These guys planned this attack really well.”

  “We have the same situation,” announced Griff. “It’s only a matter of time before they break through my defenses.”

  Shit.

  All of my officers were trapped, and it appeared they were being hemmed in by beasties who were just like me. If I had to fight my team one on one in my normal mode, I wouldn’t have a shot. But if I was decked out like I was now, due to that vampire bite, then I could probably destroy them all without much of a fuss.

  That told me that my ‘brothers’ weren’t as powerful as me, though they clearly had multiple facets of their makeup unleashed. Of course, it could also be that they were holding back for some reason. Maybe they weren’t actually interested in killing my team, but rather just taking them hostage like Red had done with Turbo. Another option might be that they preferred to kill by hand. They’d use magic and such to get inside, but then they’d finish the deed in some dastardly way.

  I hoped the latter wasn’t the case, but I wasn’t about to risk it.

  “Lydia,” I called back to the PPD artificial intelligence dispatcher, “have you been listening in?”

  “Yes, puddin’,” she replied.

  This was a little concerning because she had expressly told me before that she never liste
ned in unless she was invited to the call. Now, to be fair, it could have been that she was conferenced in automatically when everyone else joined. Still, with the Directors acting strange over the last number of months, everyone on my crew knew that we had to be careful not to divulge too much information when it came to things like this.

  “Great,” I said, playing as if it didn’t bother me in the least. “I need you to get emergency transport authorizations to the Netherworld PPD for the entire team.”

  “I’ll work on it now, honey cakes,” she replied.

  “Thanks, babe,” I said, playing my part in the flirting so that her chips would keep buzzing. “You’re the best.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the AI dispatchers.”

  Considering there was only one that I worked with, no. Clearly, Lydia had been reading through tomes of sinful romances again. It was obvious whenever she did this because she’d pick up a subtle line or two to use on me.

  “Only you, Lydia,” I replied as we got to my Aston Martin. “Only you.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes at me, but she knew the deal. I played the game with Lydia and she gave me special treatment. Her digital crush on me had saved our hides more than once over the years, though, and that meant Rachel didn’t gripe too much about my relationship with our dispatcher.

  “It appears that the Netherworld PPD has been under attack recently, love muffin,” Lydia declared. “There have been riots in the main city center.”

  “Well, that’s not good,” I replied.

  “They won’t allow any transports to the main station, but there are satellite locations we are authorized to use.” A split-second later, she added, “I have a better option, though. I’ve done a check on the team records and it appears that all of you are due for a reintegration cycle within the next forty-five days.”

  I squinted and asked, “How does that help us?”

  “You may attend reintegration any time you wish, as long as you are within a forty-five day window of your due date.”

  I hadn’t known about that. Most supers went out of their way to squeeze every last moment being topside before going through reintegration. That’s because the process sucked, it took you out of your usual routine, and it reset your due date accordingly. In other words, why would anyone want to go early when it just meant that their next reintegration clock would be reset to that day?